Clarke retains lead into weekend

Darren Clarke stuck doggedly to his task after another indifferent day with his putter to retain a one-stroke lead at the halfway point of the Volvo PGA Championship on Friday.

The Northern Irishman is playing majestically tee to green but a succession of missed chances with his putter has kept him at least in sight of most of the field at nine-under-par 135 after a second round 69 at Wentworth.

In all he took 31 putts which would be middle-of-the-field form at best had his ball-striking elsewhere not been so sweet.

With two rounds still to negotiate and the forecast not looking promising for a dry weekend, the big Ulsterman leads by one from his Ryder Cup team mate Niclas Fasth with a chasing bunch on seven under, including Ian Woosnam and an English teaching pro, Robert Rock, who is making his event debut.

"I'm playing well enough and it's just a question of waiting for the putts to start dropping," Clarke told a news conference after Friday's round.

"But my patience is being severely tested by my putting at the moment."

Despite that, Clarke, 34, who is benefitting from a new fitness regime and diet to maintain his stamina throughout the round, collected six birdies in all and only a three-foot miss at the first and a bunkered approach at the seventh prevented him repeating his opening 66.

Fasth, like Clarke, has yet to win the European Tour's flagship event but while the halfway leader has plenty of other big titles as consolation on his CV, the Swede has yet to win anything more substantial than the Madeira Island Open of 2000.

"I've got a target and that's to win a really big tournament -- and this would certainly be it," said Fasth who returned a joint-best-of-the-day 67 to progress to eight under.

Rock, 26, from central England, has even more to prove after claiming his place here only by dint of a regional tournament win. He represents a local driving range-cum-golf centre and admits to feeling somewhat out of place among a selection of the world's greatest talents here.

But equally, he has shown remarkable poise throughout his 36 holes so far and only a failure to capitalise with birdies on the relatively straightforward closing par fives prevented him bettering his 68 and joining Clarke at the top.

The firm pre-tournament favourites Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie are hardly out of it, three and four shots off the lead respectively while Nick Faldo is sitting pretty alongside the Scot at five under as he chases a fourth PGA title, the last claimed 14 years ago.

Mark James, the man responsible for discipline on Tour as the tournament committee chairman, raised eyebrows, meanwhile, with an abysmal 88 to finish 27 over par overall.

He refuted any suggestion of high jinks on the greens and explained that nothing more than a total loss of form had been responsible. "I just wanted to get out of there," said the losing 1999 European Ryder Cup skipper.

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